Hindustan Times Cafe story on Indian dogs taken overseas

Journalist Lina Choudhury-Mahajan did this interesting story in HT Cafe about Indian street dogs that have been adopted by non-Indians and now live overseas. It appeared on Sunday (31 January). This blog is mentioned in the story so I thought I'd post it here. Click on the image to enlarge the page.

Lina uses the common term "mongrel" for these dogs, but she does mention that Indian mongrels are all descended from the aboriginal breed the Indian Pariah Dog (INDog). That's a first and I hope other writers will follow her example. This is exactly what makes Indian mongrels unique and different from a mongrel/mutt in the US, Canada or Europe. Our urban street dogs all have a large measure of Indian Pariah in their bloodline, and that's what gives them their different look and personality. Unlike the mutts/mongrels in the US, Canada or Europe, which are an indeterminate mix of Eurobreeds.

That's why I prefer to use "INDog-mix" and "Pariah-mix" for our mix-breeds. "Mongrel" leads to the misconception that our street dogs are simply a Eurobreed-hotchpotch like other mutts around the world. They are no such thing.
I've mentioned here that dogs in remote rural areas have still not been mongrelized and are usually pure aboriginal Pariah dogs. That is probably true of dogs in some smaller towns as well. Check this post about the researcher Dr Sunil K Pal. The dogs in his home town Katwa (West Bengal) are probably true INDogs unmixed with Eurobreeds. There are other towns I've visited - Angul in Orissa, Canning Town and Gosaba in West Bengal - where the dogs are probably not genetically contaminated either. There are few if any Eurobreeds in those towns and if there are, they are not left unsupervised to mix with free-ranging dogs.

Image/article: Courtesy Lina Choudhury-Mahajan
Mumbai